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From Essence

The first of many summer action-packed thrillers hits theaters Friday. Pain & Gain, starring Anthony Mackie, Mark Wahlberg and Dwayne Johnson, follows three bodybuilders as they join forces to kidnap, rob and attempt to murder a wealthy Miami business man.

ESSENCE.com caught up with Mackie to chat about his new buff-body crime thriller, how he got into shape and what it was like to loosen up on camera.

On preparing for his role as Adrian and whether or not he talked to the “real” Adrian, who is character is based on:

Not at all. Thinking about it, the dude is on death row. There are a lot of aspects to his personal life that I didn’t want to get in to. I feel like him being a real guy in a movie like this wasn’t so important. Not too many people know about this story, let alone know about him. I felt like if I captured the true essence of what the writer gave me on the page, then I would be able to tell the story and do him justice.

On whether or not he’s workout obsessed:

I try to be. I try to go to the gym every morning for an hour, hour and a half. It’s just to keep myself in shape. That’s one of the reasons I wanted to do this movie. I took a four-year period when I was playing cops and stuff like that. So I drunk a lot of whiskey and ate a lot of beef and got fat.

His competitive spirit:

I met Mark before. He’s just a real down to earth cool dude. But I have this weird thing about me—I’m always overly competitive with men over six-feet tall. I don’t know why. [laughs] Every time I see a dude over six feet, I just want to be really aggressive and I’m five-foot-eleven. Whenever I have to look up at another man I want to bite him. I don’t know why! [laughs] Once I met Dwayne it was on like donkey kong.

It sounds like this was a fun movie to film.  You can check out the full interview over on Essence.com. Are you an Anthony Mackie fan? Will you be checking this one out (with all those fine men)?

I’m sure I’m not the only person who has no idea what the movie Pain and Gain is about starring Mark Wahlberg, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, and Anthony Mackie, but has an outrageous urge to run to the movie theater to see it the minute it comes out this week. Why? Because of The Rock of course. Since he signed on for this movie, that man has gotten bigger in muscle mass, grown a very alluring mustache and beard combination and is nice and tan all of a sudden, and I’m not sure about you, but it’s doing something for me. So much so that I felt the need to do another Evening Eye Candy slideshow for the brotha, who was one of the first pieces of candy we showed off back in 2011. And if this slideshow isn’t enough for you, I’d encourage you to do like me (his new stan) and become a follower of his new Instagram page, @therock. You won’t be disappointed!

Photo by Dan Steinberg/Invision/AP

We wonder if this really works. AQUAhydrate water cures hangovers? Well, Sean “Diddy” Combs and Mark Wahlberg say so. They have both just signed on as spokesmen for the brand. AQUAhydrate is alkalized electrolyte water,

“I was at a party last night till 4 a.m., and look how fresh and hydrated I am today,” Combs said at a press conference. “For the brothers out there, ashiness is something that is running rampant through our communities and this right here keeps me with my glow.”

According to the Huffington Post, Wahlberg turned to Combs and joked, “You left out the most important part: AQUAhydrate allows you to drink Cîroc vodka all night. This is a miracle cure for a hangover. I told him you’ll wake up fresh as a daisy the next day and that’s how I got him on board.” If you don´t already know, Ciroc is Diddy´s Vodka brand.

Wahlberg and Combs will work with AQUAhydrate CEO John Cochran to promote the brand to help build the company,which launched in 2004.

During the press conference, Combs spoke out against sugary drinks. “I grew up in Harlem and the favorite beverage of Harlem was Kool-Aid. All flavors. Made with half a pound of sugar. And throughout the years, that was my beverage of choice. I never drank water. That’s why I have so much flavor. I was a Kool-Aid kid,” said Combs.

AQUAhydrate isn’t just to drink to prevent hangovers. It is a water that is supposed to help improve one’s overall fitness.

But now Combs, who is the face of Cîroc vodka, is on a health kick and has six kids to think about. “There comes a point in your life when you decide to have more balance,” he said. “Me, as an extremist, that happened two years ago. And this is a part of my overall transformation — mentally and physically. Caring about what you put in your body and balancing things out.”

AQUAhydrate recently secured thousands of points of distribution across the U.S. and has major marketing plans to establish it as a household name. Although the brand will be joining an already crowded market, bottled water sales keep increasing. According to National Geographic, “Indeed, bottled water sales aren’t just growing — it’s fair to say they’re booming. Volume increased by 4.1 percent in 2011 — five times as fast as the 0.9 percent growth in the sales of beverages overall, according to Beverage Marketing. Bottled water sales, in fact, are growing twice as fast as the economy itself.”

What makes AQUAhydrate different, according to the company, is the way the water is purified and supplemented with performance electrolytes.

“As a brand architect, I am incredibly passionate and equally committed to every aspect of the businesses that I get involved with,” Combs said in a press statement.  “It’s important for me to be part of something that drives me and is constantly pushing the boundaries, and that’s what AQUAhydrate does.”

Are you a bottled water aficionado? Will you be drinking AQUAhydrate?

Celebrities seemingly live the good life with millions of adoring fans and millions more in the bank. When tragedy strikes their lives and they unexpectedly lose a loved one, we are reminded that stars are human after all and mourn just like us.

WENN

Rapper/singer/actress Queen Latifah suffered a personal loss during the early stages in her rap career. Back in 1992, the Newark native’s world was rocked when her older brother Lancelot was killed while riding the very same motorcycle his famous baby sister recently purchased for him. 20 years after his death, Queen Latifah, still struggles with her grief and said losing her brother “was like suffering an amputation.”

When you’re young, you can often make a whole bunch of dumb decisions that you don’t realize made no kind of sense until you’re grown. And for most of us, aside from the people that try and give us jobs and get nosy with background checks, nobody has to know about what we did and didn’t do, or why we were running around unclothed in the streets intoxicated. For celebrities though, sadly, this information, which is made accessible in public records, gets passed around once they get notable. Luckily for these famous folks, they were able to move on from their past arrests and mistakes and do bigger and better things. And some have done so well that their sketchy arrest records and bad decisions were news to us. But what about you? Let’s check out a few and see…

Judy Eddy/WENN.com

Dr. Dre And The Dee Barnes “Incident”

I dig Dr. Dre as much as most hip-hop fans. He’s a great producer, his music over the years on his own has been pretty classic, and the brilliance of his Beats by Dr. Dre headphones are sure to give me hearing problems by 40 (I’m working on decreasing the volume though). So yes, I’m a fan. But many people who just got acquainted with his musical talents not too long ago probably didn’t know about the Dee Barnes “incident.” Back in 1990, VJ Dee Barnes (aka, Denise) had interviewed Ice Cube after he left NWA when the drama between him and his former group was big. And allegedly, the members of NWA weren’t too fond of the way they were made to look in her interview. So when Dre went to a party and encountered Barnes in January of ’91, they had a narsty scuffle (aka, she was assaulted). Reports say he punched her in the back of the head, kicked her in the ribs, and did so in front of everybody. And after the incident was made public, the rapper/producer was less than remorseful. In the end, Barnes filed a lawsuit against Dr. Dre, and he received a fine of $2,500, had to do more than 200 hours of community service and more. The lawsuit between Barnes and the rapper was settled out of court.

Source: Shutterstock

From StyleBlazer

For some actors, being given the chance to star in a film is the dream of a lifetime, though some actors have had the opportunity to play a lead role in a movie and declined the offer. Here are 14 actors who were offered a lead role but said “no thanks!”